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Topic: Electric cars (Read 24809 times)

Lots of highland roads have big lay-bys so you can stop and picnic or make a toilet stop. They intend building more and then putting chargers in them all. They will stretch all the way to Scrabster, which has a ferry terminal for the Orkneys.There are quite a lot of charging stations on the A9 already, or at least in the towns just off the A9, but putting more on the road itself will be a big help for visitors.

I think the warnings about AI are worth paying attention to. We are going to end up like vegetables - unable to do anything - it's a major deskilling. I'm no boy racer - never have been - but driving a car to the best of your ability can be satisfying.

I spent a large portion of working life installing and programming automation in car factories, one of the operators who was being made redundant by robots put his finger on it. He just said "you do realise a robot is never going to buy a car". Or buy anything else for that matter - we are sleepwalking into an era (or should that be error ?) where more and more of the technology that controls our lives is made and owned by fewer and fewer people and large corporations, from agriculture (GMO with seeds that don't grow next year) to internet and phones, and soon it will be cars. Many experts predict (the law of unintended consequences) that autonomous vehicles will increase traffic because empty cars will join the traffic flow and when people no longer have to drive they will find jobs further from where they live and work in the car (unless they are having to share the ride with others).

And soon as peteo48 says, we will all be mindless, de-skilled humans with very little to do (it's all done for you) and 'the devil makes work for idle hands'.

one of the operators who was being made redundant by robots put his finger on it. He just said "you do realise a robot is never going to buy a car".

My kids are at an age where they have to make a choice as to what career path to follow. I am gently trying to steer them towards careers which are less likely to face oblivion. Eldest wants to be a vet, which is not so bad, youngest has a scientific/technical bent but does not know what he wants to do.

The biggest problem facing future generations is where the money is for these goods and services comes from, when nobody else has a job to pay for them. The Government already preserves millions of jobs that pay less than it cost to live, the current trend to reduce state dependency will fail.

The only answer I can see on the horizon at the moment is a citizen's income.

one of the operators who was being made redundant by robots put his finger on it. He just said "you do realise a robot is never going to buy a car".

My kids are at an age where they have to make a choice as to what career path to follow. I am gently trying to steer them towards careers which are less likely to face oblivion. Eldest wants to be a vet, which is not so bad, youngest has a scientific/technical bent but does not know what he wants to do.

The biggest problem facing future generations is where the money is for these goods and services comes from, when nobody else has a job to pay for them. The Government already preserves millions of jobs that pay less than it cost to live, the current trend to reduce state dependency will fail.

The only answer I can see on the horizon at the moment is a citizen's income.

Which begs the question, where is the money for a citizens income coming from ?

Many people now are on zero hours contracts with minimum wage - this is mainly due to loss of 'proper' (manufacturing) jobs, due to either loss of companies or automation of existing ones. Just look at voracious Uber, wants to run a profitable business and pay no tax but will not acknowledge that its 'drivers' (soon to be redundant as well due to Uber driverless cars - ha, ha) are actually employees of the company and should get sick pay, paid holidays and NI contributions paid. What we have is companies like Uber and Amazon paying no tax, paying lowest wages they can and their 'employees' (zero hours contractors) wages are being topped up by other taxpayers through tax credits, income support etc.

Vets seem to do well, but I think it is mainly 'small animal' (ie pets) vets, due to booming pet insurance business the fees that vets can charge has gone through the roof ...... when I look at what vets charge now compared with what they charged when we last had a pet (adjusted for inflation) it is horrendous, and the number of procedures offered for pets has also multiplied (nose and boob jobs etc LOL).

We are rapidly developing into a 'service industry' world, full of personal shoppers, personal trainers, financial advisors etc. - with economy dependent on people spending money they haven't got buying goods they don't really need (mainly imported) and house building (many materials also imported).

We are rapidly developing into a 'service industry' world, full of personal shoppers, personal trainers, financial advisors etc. - with economy dependent on people spending money they haven't got buying goods they don't really need (mainly imported) and house building (many materials also imported).

Widespread use of AI will only make things worse...................

I guess the issue, in future years, will be how many jobs will be lost to AI - some people think we are only at the start of where it could go. In that scenario, how do you distribute wealth?

Until you condition Homo Sapien to stop being greedy, wealth will never be distributed fairly. We have the Indian sub continent, extremely wealthy but still millions of people who live under the starvation line. Girls are still being killed at birth because they bring no wealth. China buying up the world and yet still working on the elite few being in control and if I wrote this in China the light of day would never be seen again.Man is beset by all sorts of ailments because the human skeleton in thousands of years has never adapted to walking upright. Yes surgeons can help people to walk after horrendous spinal injuries but it must be like lugging a great box around with you. Yes I know it is. I have seen brains and spinal cords after they have been removed from the body and the awesome part is how small they are in comparison to what they do. I feel it will be a very long time before man can duplicate these two organs.AI might progress to a point BUT it is unlikely in the foreseeable future that the human brain will be superseded. Unfortunately the problem arises because not every one can be a boffin. However, outside my home, not directly outside as I clear my bit of path and gutter but we have shrubs, yes shrubs growing out of the gutter. Every so often along comes a road sweeping machine which merely skates over the top. A man with a shovel and broom is inconceivable in this day and age but he would have not allowed the shrub to grow in the first place. These shrubs have already damaged the road surface so what price progress. Perhaps we should be learning to walk before we try and run. After all EV's need electricity, our generating capacity is on it's knees according to a report today so do we have a chicken and egg scenario?